Any audiophile use computer (MacBook) as your audio streaming source?

I use a fanless windows mini-pc (MS-6) designed for streaming from Hollis Audio Labs (I think i paid around $600 for it).  Not sure how much was done with it, but it is leaps and bounds better than the (highly rated on ASR) raspberry pi design (with the reccomended "better" power source) that I replaced my Linn Majik dedicated streamer with. 

I was very surprised at how good it sounded.  The story I was told is that Paul Allen was a serious audiophile and besides money, one of his major contributions to the windows OS was demanding they got the sound right.  My ears tell me there is some serious truth to that story.

The dac I am using is part of a dsp processor based (Danville dspNexus 2x8) on the AKM AK4493 DAC chip set, which until recently was considered the top of the line.  This replaced my topping D90, which in it's own right is a pretty solid performer. 

I agree that the DAC is very important if not the most important part of the equation, but how you stream counts as well.  My experience/ears tells me that as far as computer streaming goes, Microsoft is the better performer over Linux and Apple. 

Toss Roon in the mix with some room correction and there are many options for squeezing every last drop of performance out of whatever pc based or dedicated streaming device you landed on before moving on to the next level.

My$.02

The DAC is doing the exact same amount of processing whether the incoming signal has jitter or it doesn't. The DAC operates exactly the same either way. The DAC doesn't have a circuit that detects jitter or noise and then "does more work" when it detects it.

@herman  I’m not going to go track down sources for this here and maybe someone else will chime in, but there are plenty of references out there that will show DACs sound better when fed a higher quality signal with lower noise/jitter, which is largely what a DDC does.  Just because you (or I) don’t understand exactly why that is the case doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and the fact that both you and I (and scores of others here) have experienced positive benefits from adding a DDC is pretty darn good evidence that feeding a DAC a better signal has material benefits.  If it’s not because the DAC works/sounds better with a lower noise/jitter signal from the DDC they why else would that possibly be?

Some would argue that some DDCs are "voiced", or that they add a little bit of gain to the signal. Either or both would produce audible differences.

You have to wonder why so many seemingly reliable and reasonable folks report that strictly digital components (streamers, DDCs, etc.) make a sonic difference when logically they should not. What if the differencse were built in by the designer?

Whaa? One could plug his hifi streamer into his big TV or projector, sit back with a wireless keyboard/mouse and watch Netflix too??? HBO Max too??? Watch music videos and concerts with hifi audio on a streamer??? Play games??? Send emails??? The streamer (pc) can do that??? Whaaa???

I’ve been doing just that for the better part of, oh, 20 years and I honestly cannot fathom why anyone would set up their home cinema otherwise. In the past I would fish CAT cables through the walls to my media room, but nowadays you can easily stream perfectly steady 4K video over a garden-variety wifi connection. I am not using this setup for 2-channel audio listening though. One small caveat is that HTPCs often don’t play well with ARC / eARC. Mine sure doesn’t. But that’s a minor nit.

@deep_333 One thing I would add to your PC list is cooling fans. You don’t want them, and that can be a little tricky. CPUs and GPUs run hot. Liquid cooling works but will rule out most ITX-class enclosures because it's bulky. The good news is that audio processing is not CPU-intensive so you can run any number of low-power chipsets yet have power to spare. Seems like manyaudiophile streamers run ARM processors.

You have to wonder why so many seemingly reliable and reasonable folks report that strictly digital components (streamers, DDCs, etc.) make a sonic difference when logically they should not. What if the differencse were built in by the designer?

@devinplombier  Well, if they reduce noise and jitter, both of which are the well-known and proven enemies of good digital sound, why wouldn’t they sound different/better?  What in the world is not logical about that???  IMO it’s completely illogical to think otherwise, so maybe — just maybe — there’s a good reason why so many “reasonable and reliable folks” find significant sonic differences.  Hmmm.  If you wanna call jitter/noise reduction “voicing” I guess that’s your prerogative, but I’d call that a misnomer.